Chapter 4

It used to be a puzzle to me how Father Payne had the command of so much money; his estate was not large; but in the first place he spent very little on himself, and our life was extremely simple. Moreover, I became aware that some of his former pupils and friends used to send him money at times for this express purpose.

The staff consisted of the old butler, whose wife was cook. There were three other maid-servants; the gardener was also coachman. The house was certainly clean and well-kept; we looked after ourselves to a great extent; but there was never any apparent lack of money, though, on the other hand, there was every sign of careful economy. Father Payne never talked about money. "It's an interesting thing, money," I have heard him say, "and it's curious to see how people handle it--but we must not do it too much honour, and it isn't a thing that can be spoken of in general conversation."

VIII

THE METHOD

I do not propose to make any history of events, or to say how, within a very short time, I fell into the life of the place. I will only say what were the features of the scheme, and how the rule, such as it was, worked out.

First of all, and above all, came the personality of Father Payne, which permeated and sustained the whole affair. It was not that he made it his business to drive us along. It was not a case of "the guiding hand in front and the propelling foot behind." He seldom interfered, and sometimes for a considerable space one would have no very direct contact with him. He was a man who was always intent, but by no means always intent on shepherding. I should find it hard to say how he spent his time. He was sometimes to all appearances entirely indolent and good-natured, when he would stroll about, talk to the people in the village, and look after the little farm which he kept in his own hands under a bailiff. At another time he would be for long together in an abstracted mood, silent, absent-minded, pursuing some train of thought. At another time he would be very busy with what we were doing, and hold long interviews with us, making us read our work to him and giving us detailed criticisms. On these occasions he was extremely stimulating, for the simple reason that he always seemed to grasp what it was that one was aiming at, and his criticisms were all directed to the question of how far the original conception was being worked out. He did not, as a rule, point out a different conception, or indicate how the work could be done on other lines. He always grasped the plan and intention, and really seemed to be inside the mind of the contriver. He would say; "I think the theme is weak here--and you can't make a weak place strong by filling it with details, however good in themselves. That is like trying to mend the Slough of Despond with cartloads of texts. The thing is not to fall in, or, if you fall in, to get out." His three divisions of a subject were "what you say, what you wanted to say, what you ought to have wanted to say." Sometimes he would listen in silence, and then say: "I can't criticise that--it is all off the lines. You had better destroy it and begin again," Or he would say: "You had better revise that and polish it up. It won't be any good when it is done--these patched-up things never are; but it will be good practice," He was encouraging, because he never overlooked the good points of any piece of writing. He would say: "The detail is good, but it is all too big for its place, quite out of scale; it is like a huge ear on a small head," Or he would say: "Those are all things worth saying and well said, but they are much too diffuse." He used to tell me that I was apt to stop the carriage when I was bound on a rapid transit, and go for a saunter among fields. "I don't object to your sauntering, but you must _intend_ to saunter--you must not be attracted by a pleasant footpath." Sometimes he could be severe, "That's vulgar," he once said to me, "and you can't make it attractive by throwing scent about," Or he would say: "That's a platitude--which means that it may be worth thinking and feeling, but not worth saying. You can depend upon your reader feeling it without your help," Or he would say: "You don't understand that point. It is a case of the blind leading the blind. Cut the whole passage, and think it out again," Or he would say: "That is all too compressed. You began by walking, and now you are jumping." Or he would say: "There is a note of personal irritation about that; it sounds as if you had been reading an unpleasant review. It is like the complaint of the nightingale leaning her breast against a thorn in order to get the sensation of pain. You seem to be wiping your eyes all through--you have not got far enough away from your vexation. Your attempt to give it a humorous turn reminds me of Miss Squeers' titter--you must never titter!" Once or twice in early times I used to ask him how _he_ would do it. "Don't ask me!" he said. "I haven't got to do it--that's your business; it's no use your doing it in _my_ way; all I know is that you are not doing it in _your_ way." He was very quick at noticing any mannerisms or favourite words. "All good writers have mannerisms, of course," he would say, "but the moment that the reader sees that it is a mannerism the charm is gone." His praise was rarely given, and when it came it was generous and rich. "That is excellent," I can hear him say, "You have filled your space exactly, and filled it well. There is not a word to add or to take away." He was always prepared to listen to argument or defence. "Very well--read it again." Then, at the end, he would say: "Yes, there is something in that. You meant to anticipate? I don't mind that! But you have anticipated too much, made it too clear; it should just be a hint, no more, which will be explained later. Don't blurt! You have taken the wind out of your sails by explaining it too fully."

Sometimes he would leave us alone for two or three weeks together, and then say frankly that one had been wasting time, or the reverse. "You must not depend upon me too much; you must learn to walk alone."

Every week we had a meeting, at which some one read a fragment aloud. At these meetings he criticised little himself, but devoted his attention to our criticisms. He would not allow harshness or abruptness in what we said. "We don't want your conclusions or your impressions--we want your reasons." Or he would say: "That is a fair criticism, but unsympathetic. It is in the spirit of a reviewer who wants to smash a man. We don't want Stephen to be stoned here, we want him confuted." I remember once how he said with indignation: "That is simply throwing a rotten egg! And its maturity shows that it was kept for that purpose! You are not criticising, you are only paying off an old score!"

But I think that the two ways in which he most impressed himself were by his conversation, when we were all together, and by his _tête-à-tête_ talks, if one happened to be his companion. When we were all together he was humorous, ironical, frank. He did not mind what was said to him, so long as it was courteously phrased; but I have heard him say: "We must remember we are fencing--we must not use bludgeons." Or: "You must not talk as if you were scaring birds away--we are all equal here." He was very unguarded himself in what he said, and always maintained that talkers ought to contribute their own impressions freely and easily. He used to quote with much approval Dr. Johnson's remark about his garrulous old school-fellow, Edwards. Boswell said, when Edwards had gone, that he thought him a weak man. "Why, yes, sir," said Johnson. "Here is a man who has passed through life without experiences; yet I would rather have him with me than a more sensible man who will not talk readily. This man is always willing to say what he has to say." Father Payne used to add: "The point is to talk; you must not consider your reputation; say whatever comes into your head, and when you have learnt to talk, you can begin to select." I have heard him say; "Go on, some one! It is everybody's business here to avoid a pause. Don't be sticky! Pauses are for a _tête-à-tête_." Or, again, I have heard him say: "You mustn't examine witnesses here! You should never ask more than three questions running." He did not by any means keep his own rules; but he would apologise sometimes for his shortcomings. "I'm hopeless to-day. I can't attend, I can't think of anything in particular. I'm diluted, I'm weltering--I'm coming down like a shower."

The result of this certainly was that we most of us did learn to talk. He liked to thrash a subject out, but he hated too protracted a discussion. "Here, we've had enough of this. It's very important, but I'm getting bored. I feel priggish. Help, help!"

On the other hand, he was even more delightful in a _tête-à-tête_. He would say profound and tender things, let his emotions escape him. He had with me, and I expect with others, a sort of indulgent and paternal way with him. He never forgot a confidence, and he used to listen delightedly to stories of one's home circle. "Tell me some stories about Aunt Jane," he would say to me. "There is something impotently fiery about that good lady that I like. Tell me again what she said when she found cousin Frank in a smoking-cap reading Thomas-à-Kempis." He had a way of quoting one's own stories which was subtly flattering, and he liked sidelights of a good-natured kind on the character of other members. "Why won't he say such things to me?" he used to say. "He thinks I should respect him less, when really I should admire him more. He won't let me see when his box is empty! I suspect him of reading Bartlett's _Familiar Quotations_ before he goes a walk with me!" Or he would say: "In a general talk you must think about your companions; in a _tête-à-tête_ you must only feel him."

But the most striking thing about Father Payne was this. Though we were all very conscious of his influence, and indeed of his authority; though we knew that he meant to have his own way, and was quite prepared to speak frankly and act decisively, we were never conscious of being watched or censured or interfered with. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it was a pure pleasure to meet him and to be with him, and many a time have I seen him, in a moment of leisure, strolling in the garden, and hurried out just on the chance of getting a word or a smile, or, if he was in an expansive mood, having my arm taken by him for a little turn. In the hundredth case, it happened that one might have said or done something which one knew that he would disapprove. But, as he never stored things up or kept you waiting, you could be sure he would speak soon or not at all. Often, too, he would just say: "I don't think that your remark to Kaye gave a fair impression of yourself," or, "Why waste your powder as you did to-night?" I was only once or twice directly rebuked by him, and that was for a prolonged neglect. "You don't _care_," he once said to me emphatically. "I can't do anything for you if you don't care!" But he was the most entirely placable of men. A word of regret or apology, and he would say: "Don't give it another thought, my boy," or, "That's all right, then."

The real secret of his influence was that he took not a critical or even a dispassionate view of each of us, but an enthusiastic view. He took no pleasure in our shortcomings; they were rather of the nature of an active personal disappointment. The result was simply that you were natural with him, but natural with the added sense that he liked you and thought well of you, and expected friendship and even brilliance from you. You felt that he knew you well, and recognised your faults and weaknesses, but that he knew your best side even better, and enjoyed the presence of it. I never knew anyone who was so appreciative, and though I said foolish things to him sometimes, I felt that he was glad that I should be my undisguised self. It was thus delicately flattering to be with him, and it gave confidence and self-respect. That was the basis of our whole life, the goodwill and affection of Father Payne, and the desire to please him.

IX

FATHER PAYNE

Father Payne was a big solid man, as I have said, but he contrived to give the impression of being even bigger than he was. It was like the Irish estate, of which its owner said that it had more land to the acre than any place he knew. This was the result, I suppose, of what Barthrop once dryly called the "effortless expansion" of Father Payne's personality. I suppose he was about six-foot-two in height, and he must have weighed fifteen stone or even more. He was not stout, but all his limbs were solid, so that he filled his clothes. His hands were big, his feet were big. He wore a rather full beard: he was slightly bald when I knew him, but his hair grew rather long and curly. He always wore old clothes--but you were never conscious of what he wore: he never looked, as some people do, like a suit of clothes with a person inside them. Thinking it over, it seems to me that the reason why you noticed his clothes so little, when you were with him, was because you were always observing his face, or his hands, which were extremely characteristic of him, or his motions, which had a lounging sort of grace about them. Heavy men are apt on occasions to look lumbering, but Father Payne never looked that. His whole body was under his full control. When he walked, he swung easily along; when he moved, he moved impetuously and eagerly. But his face was the most remarkable thing about him. It had no great distinction of feature, and it was sanguine, often sunburnt, in hue. But, solid as it was, it was all alive. His big dark eyes were brimful of amusement and kindliness, and it was like coming into a warm room on a cold day to have his friendly glance directed upon you. As he talked, his eyebrows moved swiftly, and he had a look, with his eyes half-closed and his brows drawn up, as he waited for an answer, of what the old books call "quizzical"--a sort of half-caressing irony, which was very attractive. He had an impatient little frown which passed over his face, like a ruffle of wind, if things went too slowly or heavily for his taste; and he had, too, on occasions a deep, abstracted look, as if he were following a thought far. There was also another look, well known to his companions, when he turned his eyes upwards with a sort of resignation, generally accompanied by a deprecating gesture of the hand. Altogether it was a most expressive face, because, except in his abstracted mood, he always seemed to be entirely _there_, not concealing or repressing anything, but bending his whole mind upon what was being said. Moreover, if you said anything personal or intimate to him, a word of gratitude or pleasure, he had a quick, beautiful, affectionate look, so rewarding, so embracing that I often tried to evoke it--though an attempt to evoke it deliberately often produced no more than a half-smile, accompanied by a little wink, as if he saw through the attempt.

His great soft white hands, always spotlessly clean--he was the cleanest-looking man I ever saw--were really rather extraordinary. They looked at first sight clumsy, and even limp; but he was unusually deft and adroit with his fingers, and his touch on plants, in gardening, his tying of strings--he liked doing up parcels--was very quick and delicate. He was fond of all sorts of little puzzles, toys of wood and metal, which had to be fitted together; and the puzzles took shape or fell to pieces under his fingers like magic. They were extremely sensitive to pain, his hands, and a little pinch or abrasion would cause him marked discomfort. His handwriting was rapid and fine, and he occasionally would draw a tiny sketch to illustrate something, which showed much artistic skill. He often deplored his ignorance of handicraft, which, he said would have been a great relief to him.

His voice, again, was remarkable. It was not in ordinary talk either deep or profound, though it could and did become both on occasions, especially when he made a quotation, which he did with some solemnity. I used at first to think that there was a touch of rhetorical affectation about his quotations. They were made in a high musical tone, and as often as not ended with the tears coming into his eyes. He spoke to me once about this. He said that it was a mistake to think he was _deeply_ affected by a quotation. "In fact," he said, "I am not easily affected by passionate or tragic emotion--what does affect me is a peculiar touch of beauty, but it is a luxurious and superficial thing. It would entirely prevent me," he added, "from reading many poems or prose passages aloud which I greatly admire. I simply could not command myself! In fact," he went on, smiling, "I very often can only get to the end of a quotation by fixing my mind on something else. I add up the digits giving the number of the page, or I count the plates at the dinner-table. It's very absurd--but it takes me in just the same way when I am alone. I could not read the last chapter of the Book of Revelation aloud to myself, or the chapter on 'The Wilderness' in Isaiah, without shedding tears. But it doesn't mean anything; it is just the _hysterica passio_, you know!"

His voice, when he first joined in a talk, was often low and even hesitating; but when he became interested and absorbed, it gathered volume and emphasis. Barthrop once said to me that Father Payne was the only person he knew who always talked in italics. But he very seldom harangued, though it is difficult to make that clear in recording his talks, because he often spoke continuously. Yet it was never a soliloquy: he always included the listeners. He used to look round at them, explore their faces, catch an eye and smile, indicate the particular person addressed by a darted-out finger; and he had many little free gestures with his hands as he talked. He would trace little hieroglyphics with his finger, as if he were writing a word, sweep an argument aside, bring his hands together as though he were shaping something. This was a little confusing at first, and used to divert my attention, because of the great mobility of his hands; but after a little it seemed to me to bring out and illustrate his points in a remarkably salient way.